Mobile Phones Become Our Comfort Objects During Disaster

Two days after an 8.8-magnitude earthquake displaced them from their homes and separated them from dear ones, people gathered at a fire-station in Concepcion, Chile to charge their mobile phones - their comfort objects during this disaster.

Chile was becoming a trending topic on Twitter before even the fastest newscasters got a chance to talk about Saturday's earthquake, thanks to many hastily posted tweets - most of which likely came from mobile devices. Tweets, text messages, emails, calls, voicemails - everything flew across the networks, draining phones and granting people some comfort and peace. Just hearing a familiar voice or reading words of assurance - knowing that your mobile device links you to the world, to family and to much needed aid - makes one heck of a difference.

We need food. We need medication. We need a hand to pull us out of the rubble. But we also need a little gadget that lets us cry out to the world so that everyone else has a chance to tell us that it'll be OK. [Boston]

WATCH MORE: Tech News

Trending Stories Right Now

Video. Pretty much anything can be improved by adding Jeff Goldblum, but Taika Waititi's Thor. Ragnarok really used the actor to his fullest potential. Marvel has been releasing a few of their bonus clips from the upcoming Blu-ray release, and with them we get to see Goldblum at his... Goldblum-iest.

Star Wars and toys have gone hand in hand ever since the franchise kicked off four decades ago. But usually, it's the movies dictating what we see on store shelves - not the other way around. But in one particularly odd case, it ended up being that way for The Last Jedi.